Price reductions
helped push the Blackberry Curve, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G to the top of the
third-quarter list in unit sales to consumers, excluding sales to corporations
and enterprises, the company said.

"Carriers have been
heavily promoting the latest advanced handsets, which has spurred recent growth
in the smartphone market and an increase the number of smartphone brands
available to consumers," said Ross Rubin, NPD's industry analysis director.
"For example, while there was only one Android device available in the fourth
quarter of last year, now there are eight available from three major carriers."

Smartphones did not
increase their share of unit sales to consumers on a sequential basis in the
third quarter, but their share was up from the year-ago quarter's 23 percent,
NPD found.

Smartphone price
competition helped push down the average price of all cellphones sold to
consumers by 3 percent to $85 compared to the year-ago quarter, NPD also found.

In other third-quarter
findings, NPD said:

LG dominated sales
of feature phones, with the LG EnV3 and LG EnV Touch among the top five
handsets sold during the period.

Mobile phone
accessories sales hit $2.3 billion in the third quarter, up sequentially by 12
percent compared to the second quarter.

68 percent of new
handsets were purchased at carrier stores, with 8 percent purchased at mass
merchants and 9 percent at electronics stores during the third quarter, but
carriers will likely lose share in the fourth quarter, as they always do. "Although carrier stores lead sales
throughout the year, around the holidays consumers tend to purchase more
handsets from mass merchants, due in part to the allure of one-stop shopping
for a variety of holiday gifts," Rubin said